Okay, so monday night I decided to smooth out the intake myself. After about 3 hours of an 80 grit flap wheel, 100 and 150 grit sand paper and sore hand, I got most of the exsively rough areas off. First let me say that is friggin rough on the inside of the intake.

Now my question, most of it I got it down to actually shine and feel smooth. But if you look closely you will still see lots of *little craters* or dimples. Should I sand it down enough to remove those completely, or just as much as possible? I'm sure I will have more questions later.

The last set of pictures on my web page is how far I got as of tonight. Still alot of work to do.

http://captainoblivious.tripod.com/truck/intake.html

***please ignore the annoying popups.

Overall, this mod doesn't seem to difficult. Just time consuming with patience and attention to detail needed. But after looking into the cost that some places charge for extrude honing, I'm happy to do it my self so much cheaper.

 

I believe I read in another post that you don't want it to be glass-smooth...........

Dan

 

Read that, don't have the patience to do glass smooth, which in this case is a good thing.

 

Just a Question... if you are taking thich much time/effort to change this have you already changed the rubber boot between the MAF and the throttle body?

If you have how?

I was looking at that today thinking all those ridges would probably flow better if they were smoothed out.

Maybe taking an epoxy to them, then sand them smooth?

 

Okay, Captain--here's what I have heard. I own a Valkyrie also, and many people have "polished" the intake runners. Of course, the vast majority claim increased fuel milage and some noticable improvement in power, but I don't buy any of it. I can't imagine that smoothing the intake would produce gains noticable anywhere but on a dyno (or timeslip). Not that there are no gains--just that I doubt the ability of any human to detect the gain with a butt dyno or odometer.



Many Valkyrie riders have regretted truly "polishing" the intakes. They have complained of puddling of fuel--something about needing "laminar flow" to keep the fuel atomized at the runner/air interface. Not sure if that's the correct reason why, but there was no doubt about the puddling of fuel.

I would port match and call it a day. Very nice work!

TLS

 

Check my galley under engine mods. Smooth is good. Remember on the L only air passes through there. No fuel. Smooth will help the air flow and reduce the air temp.

 

Man . . . I gotta quit smokin' that sh*t. Forget everything I said above. That's it--I'm checking into rehab today.

 

As everyone knows, I have polished almost my whole intake system and the dibbles are in everything, they are all the way through the casting. I just got it smooth and polished at that point. Looks good, just like mine, makes one hell of a mess, don't it.

 

There is dust all over my workshop. Clean up is going to be a pain in the butt.

Silver - thanks for info, I was more considerned about those dimples, which it seems will be there regardless. So onto clean up and smoothing time Good luck with the lower intake. What are you using to do the sanding, a dremel? sand/abrasion blaster?


SVTMoonshine - no I haven't done anything to the stock rubber boot. I don't think it would be worth it to try and smooth that out. It's made of rubber so it flexes, filling it with epoxy would defeat the purpose of it being made of rubber. If you want something smooth then I'd say look into making a new one, or look into a pre-made one, like the BAbolt power pipe (when it comes out), or I think Volant has them in there kit. On the 97' 4.6L I had, the K&N FIPK replaced the rubber boot with a plastic one.

 

Well just did another hour of sanding on it Starting to come out nicer.

I added some more pictures, for those that want check it out. I started to learn javascript today, so even though it doesn't look like it you can click on the pictures to get larger ones. Sometimes it's good to be bored at work

Well here they are:

http://captainoblivious.tripod.com/truck/intake.html

***please ignore the annoying popups.

 

O agree with Silverbolt. Smoother is better when it comes to air.

 

You could take a cotton polish wheel and use some metal polish compound for a mirror finish

perfect smooth after that.

 

make sure you blue in the intake and port match it to the blower and TB while your doing it. Thats where you pick up power with the intake, not by making smoother (which it does a little) but by port matching.

 

https://www.f150online.com/galleries...TOKEN=82039257

I have a few pictures in my gallery where you can see where I grinded the knots off the inside. I also ended up polishing the whole inside. The knots are where the alum. on the outside is recessed in for the bolts to fit. You can grind them smooth without creating a hole.

Hope this helps

 

Wahoo, done for now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't want to have my truck on anymore downtime then it's already been so I finished up this morning. That thing is much much much smoother now, and better looking. Those dimples are annoying though

http://captainoblivious.tripod.com/truck/intake.html

***please ignore the annoying popups.


J.D. - I was hesitant about that b/c I didn't want to risk grinding any holes through the intake. After I get some more practice under my belt, I'm going to go back and fix it up, as well as port match it to the blower intake better. Then I plan on doing the same thing to the lower intake, as well as port match those to the heads, but that will come when I gain enough confidence to rebuild the engine myself.

Another question - how would using a sandblaster or abrasion blaster help in polishing things like the intake, well at least for removing the rough parts at first??



Some tips to anyone that wants to do this themselves:

- Hook a vacuum cleaner up to one of the ends of the intake so that it sucks up all dust as it's created. Made a wonderfull difference.
- Dremel's are one of the best tools ever created.
- Clean often.
- Prepare for some truck downtime, it may not take long but it's best to prepare for it